Macro

Macro Ops Portfolio Return Metrics *Through December 8th 2017 YTD: 22.19% 12-Month Return: 20.57% Inception (Jan 1st, 2016): 40.88% Annual Vol: 7.85% Sharpe Ratio: 2.29 Max DD: –3.97% To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride. Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes. ~ George Soros I learned that everyone makes mistakes and has weaknesses and that one of the most important things that differentiates people is their approach to handling them. […]

Alex here with this week’s Macro Musings. As always, if you come across something cool during the week, shoot me an email at alex@macro-ops.com and I’ll share it with the group. Our Recent Articles — The Global Macro Renaissance: A paradigm shift is coming that’ll bring the resurgence of global macro trading. The Randomness Of Return Distributions: Being aware of the randomness embedded in the distribution of markets returns keeps us from falling for the ego trap where we mistake skill for luck, or information for noise. Precious Metals Are Coiling: Precious metal stocks are coiling in a tight pattern […]

John Curran was the former head of commodities at Caxton Associates — the hedge fund founded by market wizard Bruce Kovner. He wrote a great article in Barron’s titled The Coming Renaissance of Macro Investing. In the piece, John writes about what he sees as the coming paradigm shift in markets and how this shift will lead to the resurgence of macro investing. Here’s a snippet from the article: In meetings with fund managers, asset allocators, and analysts, I have found a virtually universal view that macro investing—investing based on global macroeconomic and political, not security-specific trends—is dead, fueled by […]

Alex here with this week’s Macro Musings. As always, if you come across something cool during the week, shoot me an email at alex@macro-ops.com and I’ll share it with the group. Our Recent Articles — The Best Trading Podcasts For Global Macro Investors: The list of podcasts we listen to each month. We’ve got both process and news/commentary listed. If you have any suggestions, be sure to list them in the comments! Articles I’m reading — I loved this piece in the New Yorker where a guy recounts his experience as an investor in the money burning pit that is […]

These days we’re flooded with information with barely enough time to digest it all. To help solve this, our team at Macro Ops tunes into trading podcasts. With trading podcasts, all those hours you spend driving, doing chores, or working out can also be used to catch up on markets and learn something new. Below you’ll find a list of podcasts we listen to on a monthly basis to keep our game sharp. We’ve separated them into two categories — process based and news/commentary/narrative based. The process based podcasts help us develop our macro trading strategies while the commentary helps […]

The graph above shows a logistic function that maps out a sigmoid curve… otherwise known as an S-curve. This function was popularized by mid-19th century scientist Pierre Francois Verhulst who applied it in his study of population growth. Verhulst found that population growth follows a certain S-curve. It grows at a steady state until it hits a certain point where it grows exponentially. This exponential growth sustains until the system hits a saturation point where it slows and eventually stops. The S-curve is one of those strange universal laws that shows up all over the place. Similar to how power […]

Tyler here with this week’s Macro Musings. Just a reminder, we’re releasing the newest issue of our Macro Intelligence Report (MIR) early next week. In it we’re covering a basket of agricultural stocks that are ready to rip just like our IPI play (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, read our article below). Phase 3, the Overheat Phase, is a target rich environment. There’s a lot of profits to be made. If you’d like to come along for the ride, make sure you subscribe to the MIR by clicking here. Our Recent Articles — The Overheat Phase: We […]

Legendary speculator, Jesse Livermore, credits the following realization with transforming his trading game and turning him into one of the greats. He said: Tape reading was an important part of the game; so was beginning at the right time; so was sticking to your position. But my greatest discovery was that a man must study general conditions, to size them so as to be able to anticipate probabilities. A man must study general conditions, to size them so as to be able to anticipate probabilities…. This truth was realized by market wizard Michael Marcus over half a century later when […]

Return Metrics *Through last full trading week of July YTD: 23.41% 12-Month Return: 35.58% Inception: 41.84% Annual Vol: 7.50% Sharpe Ratio: 3.00 Max DD: -1.92% Tyler from Macro Ops here. Spec Ops has been crushing it since inception. It’s made over 40% with a max drawdown under 2%. Market conditions have been perfect for this portfolio’s strategy, but we’ve also made some key macro reads that have boosted performance above “baseline”. We’ve hit a Sharpe ratio of 3, which is about as good as you can get, unless you’re a HFT shop trading millions of times a year. Spec Ops’ […]

To others, being wrong is a source of shame; to me, recognizing my mistakes is a source of pride. Once we realize that imperfect understanding is the human condition, there is no shame in being wrong, only in failing to correct our mistakes. ~ George Soros I learned that everyone makes mistakes and has weaknesses and that one of the most important things that differentiates people is their approach to handling them. I learned that there is an incredible beauty to mistakes, because embedded in each mistake is a puzzle, and a gem that I could get if I solved it, i.e. […]